I combine my clinical work with being a PhD student and doing research on tele-rehabilitation, ie. rehabilitation provided at a distance, with these patient groups. My goal is to find ways to improve patients’ everyday life and quality of life.
What is heart failure?
Heart failure is a chronic multifactorial clinical syndrome with a growing patient population that affects all age categories and results in reduced function level and quality of life as well as high healthcare costs. Therapeutic advances have significantly improved survival in heart failure patients, but the burden of symptoms remains high. Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a serious pulmonary vascular disease that primarily involves the arterioles in the pulmonary vascular bed. It presents with a slowly increasing shortness of breath on exertion and patients may experience disabling symptoms. Physical activity has been shown to improve quality of life and functional capacity and probably also increases survival, but it is difficult to motivate and sustain exercise in people with long-term illnesses. I believe we can improve our work and help patients achieve higher functional capacity and better quality of life through the development and implementation of innovative methods.
